About Future Tense

Kevin Sampsell

About Us

FUTURE TENSE PRESS was started in Spokane, Washington in 1990 and had a brief stint in Arkansas before moving to Portland, Oregon in 1992. Throughout the years, Future Tense has gone from scrappy xeroxed chapbooks (even before we had a computer) to beautifully designed paperbacks, limited edition hardcovers, our pocket-sized Scout Books series, and eBooks. We’re proud to have published many groundbreaking debuts and small press classics throughout the years (like Gary Lutz, Chelsea Hodson, Jamie Iredell, Zoe Trope, Susannah Breslin, Aaron Gilbreath, Wendy C. Ortiz, Myriam Gurba, Jay Ponteri, Sarah Grace McCandless, Shane Allison, Mike Topp, Elizabeth Ellen, May-Lan Tan, Chelsea Martin, and so many others). See our Hall of Fame page to see some of these awesome (out of print, but never forgotten) artifacts. We take pride in publishing new and groundbreaking writers and books that take chances and go places where you might not expect. We’re committed to showcasing writers who are not just important and innovative, but also accessible and fun. We’re in this to create real art. We’re in this for the long haul.

Thank you all for your support and love!

Tyler Meese

Bianca Flores

Matthew Simmons

We do use interns occasionally, but we don’t have a dedicated business office. If you are writing to us about internships, please understand that we may not have as much work as other publishers will. And if you still want to help, we ask that you live in Portland and have a car.

Our legendary pre-2016 Designers & eBook production guy was the great Bryan Coffelt.

Distribution

Most titles can be purchased also through Powells.com and Amazon.com (including through their international sites). As well as some select stores like Quimby’s (Chicago), Atomic Books (Baltimore), McNally Jackson (New York), Skylight (Los Angeles), Pegasus (Bay Area), Green Apple (San Francisco) Elliott Bay and Left Bank (Seattle) and Powell’s and Reading Frenzy (Portland). Our books are listed in Books-in-Print and can be ordered from most book stores, no matter where you live. Our paperback titles can be ordered from bookstores through Ingram Tennessee and Small Press Distribution. Many of our recent books can also be ordered through our friends at Pioneers Press in Kansas.

Submissions

We usually only publish three or four books a year, so WE DON’T TAKE SUBMISSIONS (in the traditional sense) any more. This may seem strange, but believe me when I say, We know what we’re looking for and we know where and how to find it and we have a good healthy list of writers we want to work with already. If you want to say hi and that you like us and you want to be on our radar, send us an email and introduce yourself. If we feel the need to take submissions again, maybe we’ll have a contest someday, but for now we’ve got too much on our plates. Thank you for your understanding.

Distribution

Most titles can be purchased also through Powells.com and Amazon.com (including through their international sites). As well as some select stores like Quimby’s (Chicago), Atomic Books (Baltimore), McNally Jackson (New York), Skylight (Los Angeles), Pegasus (Bay Area), Green Apple (San Francisco) Elliott Bay and Left Bank (Seattle) and Powell’s and Reading Frenzy (Portland). Our books are listed in Books-in-Print and can be ordered from most book stores, no matter where you live. Our paperback titles can be ordered from bookstores through Ingram Tennessee and Small Press Distribution. Many of our recent books can also be ordered through our friends at Pioneers Press in Kansas.

Submissions

We usually only publish three or four books a year, so WE DON’T TAKE SUBMISSIONS (in the traditional sense) any more. This may seem strange, but believe me when I say, We know what we’re looking for and we know where and how to find it and we have a good healthy list of writers we want to work with already. If you want to say hi and that you like us and you want to be on our radar, send us an email and introduce yourself. If we feel the need to take submissions again, maybe we’ll have a contest someday, but for now we’ve got too much on our plates. Thank you for your understanding.